


Absences

by KlayterMcCabe



Category: Travelers (TV)
Genre: Conversations, Episode Tag, Episode: s01e03 Aleksander, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-09
Updated: 2017-09-09
Packaged: 2018-12-25 18:18:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12041538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KlayterMcCabe/pseuds/KlayterMcCabe
Summary: A coda to episode three; Trevor and Philip do some processing. "Here we are, a whole species—seven and a half billion of us right now, if you can close your eyes and imagine how unalone that makes us—that just wants to help, and to do better."





	Absences

Traveler 3326 assumed there would be absences. There are absences in every historical record, both the product of incomplete information and the personal bias of any given recorder. Normal human memory is subject to confabulation, confirmation bias, source confusion—a host of flaws that make history precarious. His modifications downplay the severity of these flaws, but are incapable of eliminating them.

In the drop before he doses, he is particularly haunted by hindsight bias: of course the world doesn't want to be saved.

An absence in the historical record: Philip Pearson's ongoing heroin addiction.

Now, obviously, he understands the appeal of heroin. N ot just the warding off of sickness, but a euphoria that would have been unimaginable in the future,  and is barely believable here. The utter release of apathy. The perfect freedom in sitting there and barely existing.

Heroin is the ability to disappear.

An absence: why did Philip Pearson want to disappear?

000

"Just come outside with me," says Trevor.

Philip frowns and touches his torso. "I'm not walking very well yet."

"We won't go far." Trevor smiles. The bruises on his face from his averted death have healed, but he still looks older than his purported seventeen years. No, he looks exactly seventeen, but occasionally his voice caries the cadences of 0115. Trevor has been to see him repeatedly since he was shot, and these visits serve multiple purposes: has Philip Pearson been sending anonymous tips to the FBI? Has Philip Pearson been shooting up more than Marcy's stated limits? Is Philip Pearson's wound healing adequately?

Actually, these visits serve one purpose: prevent Philip Pearson from endangering the mission via any of the myriad fuck-ups available to him.

This could be an order from MacLaren, or it could be Trevor handling a problem of his own accord. 0115 is very aware of his seniority, and he feels responsible for the rest of them in a way a younger engineer could not.

The Director's historical record, probably the closest to bias-free that any such record can be, will certainly record these facts about 0115: he is brave, intelligent, competent, loyal.

Here is a possible absence: 0115 is kind.

"Part of your problem is that you don't go outside," Trevor is saying. "What was the point of coming all this way if you were just going to treat the garage like a shelter?"

"I do go outside." If Trevor thinks the feeling of the sun on his skin is glorious, if he treasures the miracle of a perfectly-timed breeze or the brilliant color of a dandelion sprouting through a crack in the sidewalk: he should try those things on heroin.

"It wouldn't be terrible," Trevor continues, "if you attempted to maintain any of your host's previous relationships. I think this isolation contributes to your depression, and I think your heroin use and your depression feed each other."

Philip rolls his eyes. "You've been talking to Marcy."

"Yes," says Trevor evenly. "I've been consulting with the medic about your medical condition."

"My host didn't exactly have a thriving social network."

Trevor walks over and holds out his hand, and Philip allows himself to be hauled upright.

"142 facebook friends, with whom he rarely interacted. No twitter. He used Signal to buy drugs, not maintain friendships. One college roommate—his best friend, I was recently informed—who is now dead. I can't maintain relationships that didn't exist."

He shuffles after Trevor, and they stand on the sidewalk just outside the door.

It's almost a perfect day. The sun is too bright and too hot, but there are crows calling to each other from the rooftop. The wind is brisk enough to gust trash across the street. The sky is as blue and vivid as heartbreak.

"What about your parents?"

An absence: Philip's parents.

"I watched—" they're outside now, so Philip is careful with his pronouns, "my best friend die. That was the first thing I did when I got here. He just stared at me and blinked twice. He would have been an excellent host, by the way."

Trevor frowns. "I'm sorry. I didn't know that."

"He wasn't—I'd just never watched someone die like that before. Knowing I was fully capable of saving him, but not doing it anyway. The next day I watched another host candidate die. A cop who'd been harassing me. I could have saved both their lives. It would've been easy."

Trevor nods. "Did you, uh, tell anyone that?"

Philip shrugs.

"A few of the early test teams included a psychologist specializing in trauma," says Trevor slowly. "But six was an unwieldy size for a team—five is an unwieldy size, frankly—and everyone... All of us were carrying trauma even before we made the jump. Plus the misfires. So that role was folded into the medic."

"Marcy has enough to deal with already."

"We all do. But if it would help you to talk to another human being, she would be an excellent choice. I would also be an excellent choice. MacLaren would be an excellent choice, so he can factor what you say into his decision-making."

"MacLaren would be a terrible choice, because if he starts having to factor in people's  _ feelings _ , we're all fucked."

Trevor laughs, and Philip blinks at him, mildly affronted.

"A lot of engineers talk like that. Like feelings are a design flaw that we have to work around. But they're a feature, not a bug. The single most powerful motivator available to us. Do you remember the exact moment when you decided to volunteer? Do you remember what that felt like?"

"Yeah," says Philip dryly. "I think I might be able to recall."

Trevor laughs again. "My mistake. Of course you remember everything. Feelings have to be managed. You can't ignore them and assume they'll go away, or you end up doing weird shit like sitting alone in a garage and shooting up and making choices that run counter to protocol because you  _ feel like _ it's a good idea." He pauses. "And in a way," he says more softly, "it was a good idea. I'm not sorry we saved Aleksander, either."

Something in Philip releases. No one else has said this. No one has forgiven him, or agreed with him. They've just accepted that he's defective and attempted to work around it. But it wasn't defective to save lives, was it? That was what they came here for.

"Do you trust the Director?" he bursts out. "The same Director working with a half-assed historical record based on lies people told about themselves to boost their self-image? And even if you trust it, do you trust all the  _ people _ working as its agents? The ones who fucking programmed it? This is a mess, we're not even allowed—"

Trevor puts a hand on Philip's shoulder. He'd begun to lean, he realizes. It's hours before he can dose again, but this is an absence he feels acutely.

"Here's what I trust about people," says Trevor. "They want to do the right thing. Almost all of them, almost all the time, are so desperate to do the right thing that they'll hurt themselves in the pursuit of it. They disagree about what 'right' is. They disagree about how to accomplish it. But here we are, a whole species—seven and a half billion of us right now, if you can close your eyes and imagine how unalone that makes us—that just wants to help, and to do better. Like you helped Aleksander. Like we're helping the whole world."

"7.432 billion," says Philip softly. He tries, just for a moment, to feel the weight of so many lives, but it's suffocating, and he turns his eyes to the sky instead. The air is humid, but here in the past it's never stale.

"Why do you think I started using heroin?" Philip asks. "Presumably I grew up with the same anti-drug education that's endemic to this time period, so I couldn't have been surprised. I was doing it with my best friend, so it's not like I was tricked. I don't understand."

"I can't answer that," says Trevor. "I'm often baffled by Trevor Holden's choices myself. There was so much anger, so much emotional destruction. He was literally beaten to death in a fight he consented to. He had everything, and wasn't just out to punish himself for it, but everyone around him."

Philip shrugs. "Kids are angry. You might be too old to remember what it's like."

That makes Trevor laugh, and he glances quickly up and down the street, but no one is around. "You weren't too much older than your host, were you?"

Philip shakes his head.

"Other people's lives are always a mystery. That's the source of most of the art in human history, I suppose. We're just uniquely situated to appreciate it."

Philip nods. He's sweating, and getting paler. When Trevor offers his arm, he takes it, and they go back into the garage, where Trevor guides him to his bed.

"Get some sleep," he says. "I'll monitor things out here."

Sleep without heroin is light, uneasy, and often nightmarish. But Philip closes his eyes.

7.432 billion people trying to do the right thing, and all of them fucking it up.

An absence: hope.

But they're the solution, or at least part of the solution.

Please, let them be enough.

 


End file.
